THREATS AND RESPONSES: ANTITERROR ARREST

THREATS AND RESPONSES: ANTITERROR ARREST; Kuwait Says a Senior Qaeda Member Has Confessed to Planning 2 Attacks in Yemen

By CRAIG S. SMITH

Published: November 17, 2002

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 16—
Kuwait has custody of a member of Al Qaeda who has confessed to planning the attack against a French supertanker off the coast of Yemen last month and a car bomb attack that was to have been carried out against a hotel in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, a senior Kuwaiti security official said today.

The official, who spoke by telephone from Kuwait City, identified the senior Qaeda member as Mohsen al-Fadhli, 21, a Kuwaiti citizen who was arrested with two other alleged Kuwaiti members of Al Qaeda on Nov. 4. The official said Mr. Fadhli began talking on Monday, detailing both the planning of the tanker attack, which crippled the French-registered Limburg and killed one Bulgarian crew member, and an attack on a hotel used by American military officials that was to have been carried out this month.

''Everything was ready,'' the Kuwaiti official said of the attack on the hotel.

The disclosure that the Yemeni attack originated in Kuwait comes as a blow to the tiny emirate, which only reluctantly conceded the presence of active Qaeda cells among its citizens after an attack by two young Kuwaitis against American troops last month left one marine dead. Kuwait State Security has concluded that the two were linked to Muhammad Mansur Jabarah, 20, a Canadian citizen born in Kuwait who was arrested in Oman earlier this year.

Mr. Fadhli's confession traces a network of Qaeda activity between Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Yemen -- a further suggestion that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network remains active across the Arabian Peninsula. Last month, a missile fired from a C.I.A. Predator drone near the noman's land that forms the sketchy Saudi-Yemeni border killed a senior Qaeda leader, Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, a suspect in the bombing of the American destroyer Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden two years ago, which killed 17 sailors.

[A statement attributed to Al Qaeda threatened more attacks in New York and Washington unless the United States stops supporting Israel and converts to Islam, according to a reporter for Al Jazeera television news who said he received the unsigned letter.

[The reporter, Yosri Fouda, told The Associated Press that he received the six-page letter on Wednesday, a day after Al Jazeera broadcast an audiotape purportedly made by Osama bin Laden. He said the statement called on Americans to stop supporting Israel and other governments that ''oppress'' Muslims or face more attacks. It also called on all Americans to convert to Islam, he said.

[The statement also demanded that American troops leave the Arabian Peninsula, and justified the killings of American civilians because they pay taxes that finance the military, Mr. Fouda said.]

According to the Kuwaiti security official, early last year Mr. Fadhli made contact with another alleged Qaeda operative in Saudi Arabia, identified as Moedi al-Khatani, who put Mr. Fadhli in touch with Abu Assam al-Makki, also known as Muhammad al-Hamati, a bakery owner and Qaeda member, who is wanted for helping to plan the Cole bombing. Mr. Fadhli offered to help plan and finance an attack if Mr. Makki could identify potential targets, the Kuwaiti official said.

Mr. Makki chose the tanker and a hotel as targets, and Mr. Fadhli raised $127,000 to purchase materials for the attacks and passed the money to Mr. Khatani in Saudi Arabia, who forwarded it to Yemen in April this year.

The Kuwaiti official said both the C.I.A. and the Saudi authorities had been notified of Mr. Khatani's involvement, but he did not know if any arrests had been made. He said Kuwaiti security forces had arrested Yusuf Bu Haimed, a former Kuwaiti Army officer who had fought in Aghanistan, for contributing funds for the attacks. He said there might be more arrests in the case.

Two young Yemenis were chosen to carry out the suicide attacks, the Kuwaiti official said. One, Shehab al-Yemeni, 23, apparently died after he rammed an explosives-packed fishing boat against the French oil tanker on Oct. 6.

The other would-be suicide attacker was identified as Osama al-Yemeni, 25. The Kuwaiti official said that his name had been passed to the C.I.A. and the Yemeni authorities but that he did not know whether the man had been arrested.

He said that the two men were not related but that both had fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan and were believed to have lost family in the American bombing of that country last year.

According to Mr. Fadhli's account, the money was used to purchase a black G.M.C. Suburban with tinted windows that was to have been used to blow up the Sanaa hotel used by American military and intelligence officials. The Kuwaiti official did not know the name of the hotel but said American intelligence officials involved in the case had identified it.

The official said Mr. Fadhli had been under investigation since he returned to Kuwait from Afghanistan in January. Many young Kuwaitis, disillusioned by American policies in the Middle East despite the United States rescue of Kuwait from Iraqi occupation in 1991, spent time in Afghanistan fighting alongside the Taliban and training in Qaeda camps.

As with many of these men, Mr. Fadhli had also fought on behalf of Muslims in Chechnya.

Kuwait State Security detained Mr. Fadhli for questioning upon his return from Afghanistan and had been monitoring his activities since then. The security official said Mr. Fadhli had begun communicating with his Qaeda associates a month after his release, using seven or eight different mobile phone numbers registered in the names of his Bangladeshi or Indian servants. He was called in again for questioning a month ago and finally arrested this month.

The Kuwaiti official said Mr. Fadhli was not the senior Qaeda member that the United States recently said they had arrested. He also said Mr. Fadhli was not associated with the two other junior Qaeda members arrested the same day in Kuwait or with the attackers who killed the marine last month.

''Each cell had a separate connection with some Qaeda leaders,'' the Kuwaiti official said.